They have won a $120 account credit to upgrade their website, a Spruz T-Shirt and will be placed on the Spruz home page for two months! We'd like to take this opportunity to thank all those that submitted an introduction and those that voted. We hope you all enjoyed this community event!

Unfortunately two sites had to be disqualified. We are in the process of notifying them as to the reason why.

Now as to the future of the Community Spotlight. We've learned a lot from these past few weeks, and are very pleased with the community interaction created as a result of the Community Spotlight. To help foster this even further we will be extending an invitation to the communities that were the runner ups during this past round of voting to join a committee that will be selecting the next eight communities. They will be contacted shortly with more details.

We'll be posting the next Community Spotlight this upcoming Saturday, where we'll once again highlight a Community of the Week, Suggestion of the Week and Tip of the Week. Once eight Community Spotlights have been posted we'll open up voting once again and allow you to choose your favorite.

The purpose of the Community of the Week competition has always been to highlight members that have put time and energy into making their community something special. We're looking forward to seeing an introduction for your site and possibly selecting it as the Community of the Week!

We're coming to the close of our first round of Community Spotlights, with voting ending this Friday at 11:59 pm (this was changed from the previously announced 7 am). The winner will be announced Saturday the 1st and will receive 6 months worth of free hosting with Spruz ($20 a month), a featured spot on www.Spruz.com, and a free Spruz t-shirt. Get your vote in as soon as possible!

At this point you may be wondering how we selected the eight sites and how you can have a chance at our next round of prizes; it's actually much easier than you might have thought!

Sites featured as the Community of the Week are selected based off of the introduction they post in the Introduce Your Website forum. All introductions must use our guidelines in order to be approved. If a site is selected it will appear as the Community of the Week in our weekly "Community Spotlight" article that is posted every Saturday, along with a Suggestion and Tip of the Week.

The end goal of the Community Spotlight and the Community of the Week is not to find the best sites within our platform, but rather to recognize website owners that have put forth effort to make their piece of the internet something special. We hope it will continue to bring this community of site owners together and provide you with inspiration as to what's possible with the Spruz platform.

Well everyone, we made it. Eight Community Spotlights later and it's almost time for you to vote on which site you think deserves first place. Read through this week's Spotlight and get ready to vote this Monday!

OVPPI has two very important qualities I want to highlight. First -- much like last week's Site of the Week -- it covers a unique subject. The second quality further refines this: it's targeted at a local level. By doing this OVPPI makes it easier for visitors to feel like they're part of a community, since they may already share their physical community with each other.

That's not to say balance isn't needed; it most certainly is. Create a site that's too local and you risk alienating those that may drop in from other parts of the world wide web. Create a site that's too broad and chances are someone else has already done it. OVPPI does a great job at striking this balance by using elements such as the "Latest Global UFO Reports" widget while at the same time having a widget that displays the local weather.

Congratulations once again to CanWEBada and everyone at the Ottawa Valley Paranormal/Phenomenon Investigations! Stop by their introduction page for more information.

We're only days away from the voting to start for the top Site of the Week! If you'd like a shot at our next round of rewards post an introduction that follows the guidelines we've provided.

Suggestion of the Week

This week's suggestion is actually a collection of three minor ones. See below for a link to each!

As always we want to hear what you think about each idea. If you've thought of a feature you'd like to see added to the Spruz platform feel free to post it in the Idea Room. Remember to make it as detailed as possible; all topics must be approved before they'll appear.

Tip of the Week

This week's tip is from our knowledge base and will show you how to set your site up with RPX, an amazing feature that makes it easier for people to join and log into your website. The Spruz development team has done most of the coding work that's necessary for it to work with your website. You can see an example of it in action on the Skysa website.

This week's featured community is The Alternative Society! The website -- which serves as a community for those interested in piercings and tattoos -- was created by Tainted_Zeal.

To put it simply, The Alternative Society is different from the other sites we've featured, and I'm pretty sure that's the way they like it. One of the worst things a site admin can do is make their site generic, yet it's a mistake that happens all too often. By defining what the community is there for Tainted_Zeal has made it more likely that quality members join.

Humans are social creatures that have a desire to be part of something bigger than themselves, which is why community sites have such a big draw. The best way to spur your site on to success is to decide what specific niche, or category, your site will represent. Remember: nothing brings people together better than a common interest. The Alternative Society is evidence of this fact.

Congratulations once again to Tainted_Zeal and everyone at The Alternative Society! Stop by their introduction post for more information.

It's almost time to vote for your favorite featured site. There is only one more site that will be featured, so if you'd like a shot at it post an introduction that follows the guidelines we've provided.

Suggestion of the Week

This week's suggestion comes from Hooey. They suggested that birthdays be automatically added to the Event Page if the site administrator selects the option in the feature settings page. He points out that there is already an element that can display the birthdays of members, but that it's not as personal.

If you've thought of a feature you'd like to see added to the Spruz platform feel free to post it in the Idea Room. Remember to make it as detailed as possible; all topics must be approved before they'll appear.

Tip of the Week

This week's tip is from our video library and shows you how to use access levels to make it easier to manage your site. It can take some time and thought to figure out how they'll be used in your site, but once the work is done it's well worth it.